Thanks For Saying That

Here's the most valuable piece of advice I ever received from a women's magazine. (It has nothing to do with hair care.)

I read it while waiting for a blind date set up my mother, so it already didn't look like a promising evening.

What happened was this: my sister's mother in law has two sons, Bruce and Paul. Bruce married my sister. Bruce and Paul's mother, despairing of Paul ever getting married, advertised in a national Jewish publication for a date for her son, something along the lines of "Your wonderful daughter should met my wonderful son." I won't get into the issues raised by this, which are pretty self apparent.

Anyway, apparently there were some responses from meddling mothers of daughters in the Baltimore-Washington area (my sister's in-laws are in Richmond, Virginia), and for some reason those responses were shared with my mother, who took it upon herself to call one of these women and ask if she wanted to meet me. (Obviously, this was when I was single.)

When my mother told me what she'd done I was furious. I told her never to do it again, but because she'd called one woman and told her I was going to call her, I thought it might be hurtful if I didn't call. So I did.

When I went to pick her up for our date she wasn't, of course, actually ready, so I waited in her living room while she finished her preparations. Some women's magazines were on her coffee table and I, bored, picked one up.

One of the articles — I wound up having a lot of time to read — was about how to say thank you. Essentially, it said that most of us, taught by our parents to be modest, rather than boastful, slough off compliments. "Wow, you did really well on that test." "Ehh, I was lucky." And it's true.

But the point was this: If I compliment you and you pass it off, saying it was luck, or circumstances, or anything but your own actions, you're saying (by implication) two things: you didn't really achieve anything noteworthy through your own efforts, and I'm wrong in complimenting you. In essence, under the guise of modesty, you've just criticized yourself and me.

But what if you say, "You did a great job organizing that event," and I reply differently? What if I say, "Thanks. I worked really hard on that, and it makes me feel good to have you say that." Or, "Thanks, I worked really hard on that, and I appreciate your saying that." Or even, "Thanks."

Now you've acknowledged the compliment and praised both yourself and the person who complimented you, but not in an egotistical way. You both feel good.

It felt awkward and a little artificial the first time I tried it, and the second and third times as well. But eventually it started to feel natural, and now It comes naturally.

Try it and see what I mean.

Oh, and the date? Religion was a very big part of her life, and her dream was to move to Israel and raise lots of Jewish children. That wasn't my dream.

Plus, she let her mother set up her blind dates. How creepy is that?